Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A67202
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The plain-dealer a comedy, as it is acted at the Theatre Royal / written by Mr. Wycherley.
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Wycherley, William, 1640-1716.
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1677
(1677)
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Wing W3749; ESTC R10532
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87,779
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111
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I don 't and perhaps 't is time enough pray hold your self contented Mistress Wid. Nay if you go there too I will not be contented Sir tho' you I see will lose my Cause for want of speaking I wo'not You shall hear me and shall be instructed Let 's see your Brief Pet. Send your Solicitor to me instructed by a Woman I 'd have you to know I do not wear a Bar-gown Wid. By a Woman And I 'd have you to know I am no common Woman but a Woman conversant in the Laws of the Land as well as your self tho' I have no Bar-gown Pet. Go to go to Mistress you are impertinent and there 's your Brief for you instruct me Flings her Breviate at her Wid. Impertinent to me you saucy Iack you You return my Breviate but where 's my Fee You 'll be sure to keep that and scan that so well that if there chance to be but a brass Half-crown in 't one 's sure to hear on 't again wou'd you wou'd but look on your Breviate half so narrowly But pray give me my Fee too as well as my Brief Pet. Mistress that 's without Precedent When did a Counsel ever return his Fee pray And you are impertinent and ignorant to demand it Wid. Impertinent again and ignorant to me Gadsbodikins you puny Upstart in the Law to use me so you Green Bag Carrier you Murderer of unfortunate Causes the Clerks Ink is scarce off of your fingers you that newly come from Lamblacking the Judges shooes and are not fit to wipe mine you call me impertinent and ignorant I wou'd give thee a Cuff on the ear sitting the Courts if I were ignorant Marry gep if it had not been for me thou hadst been yet but a hearing Counsel at the Bar. Ex. Petulant Enter Mr. Buttongown crossing the Stage in haste Mr. Buttongown Mr. Buttongown whither so fast what won't you stay till we are heard Butt I cannot Mrs. Blackacre I must be at the Council my Lord's Cause stays there for me Wid. And mine suffers here Butt I cannot help it Wid. I 'm undone Butt What 's that to me Wid. Consider the five pound Fee if not my Cause that was something to you Butt Away away pray be not so troublesom Mistress I must be gone Wid. Nay but consider a little I am your old Client my Lord but a new one or let him be what he will he will hardly be a better Client to you than my self I hope you believe I shall be in Law as long as I live therefore am no despicable Client Well but go to your Lord I know you expect he shou'd make you a Judge one day but I hope his promise to you will prove a true Lord's promise But that he might be sure to fail you I wish you had his Bond for 't Butt But what will you yet be thus impertinent Mistress Wid. Nay I beseech you Sir stay if it be but to tell me my Lord's Case come in short Butt Nay then Ex. Buttongown Wid. Well Ierry observe Child and lay it up for hereafter These are those Lawyers who by being in all Causes are in none therefore if you wou'd have 'em for you let your Adversary fee 'em for he may chance to depend upon 'em and so in being against thee they 'll be for thee Ierr. Ay Mother they put me in mind of the unconscionable Woers of Widows who undertake briskly their Matrimonial business for their money but when they have got it once let who 's will drudge for them therefore have a care of 'em forsooth there 's Advice for your Advice Wid. Well said Boy come Mr. Splitcause pray go see when my Cause in Chancery comes on and go speak with Mr. Quillet in the Kings-Bench and Mr. Quirk in the Common-Pleas and see how our matters go there Enter Major Oldfox Old Lady a good and propitious morning to you and may all your Causes go as well as if I my self were Judge of ' em Wid. Sir excuse me I am busie and cannot answer Complements in Westminster-hall Go Mr. Splitcause and come to me again to that Booksellers there I 'll stay for you that you may be sure to find me Old No Sir come to the other Booksellers I 'll attend your Ladiship thither Ex. Splitcause Wid. Why to the other Old Because he is my Bookseller Lady Wid. What to sell you Lozenges for your Catarrh or Medicines for your Corns what else can a Major deal with a Bookseller for Old Lady he Prints for me Wid. Why are you an Author Old Of some few Essayes deign you Lady to peruse ' em She is a Woman of parts and I must win her by shewing mine Aside The Bookseller's Boy Boy Will you see Culpepper Mistress Aristotle's Problems The Compleat Midwife Wid. No let 's see Dalton Hughs Shepherd Wingate Boy We have no Law-books Wid. No You are a pretty Bookseller then Old Come have you e're a one of my Essayes left Boy Yes Sir we have enough and shall alwayes have ' em Old How so Boy Why they are good steady lasting Ware Old Nay I hope they will live let 's see Be pleas'd Madam to peruse the poor endeavors of my Pen for I have a Pen tho' I say it that Gives her a Book Ierr. Pray let me see St. George for Christendom or The Seven Champions of England Wid. No no give him The Young Clerk's Guide What we shall have you read your self into a humor of Rambling and Fighting and studying Military Discipline and wearing red Breeches Old Nay if you talk of Military Discipline shew him my Treatise of The Art Military Wid. Hold I wou'd as willingly he shou'd read a Play Ierr. O pray forsooth Mother let me have a Play Wid. No Sirrah there are young Students of the Law enough spoil'd already by Playes they wou'd make you in love with your Landress or what 's worse some Queen of the Stage that was a Landress and so turn Keeper before you are of age Several crossing the Stage But stay Ierry is not that Mr. what-d ' y' call-him that goes there he that offer'd to sell me a Suit in Chancery for five hundred pound for a hundred down and only paying the Clerks Fees Ierr. Ay forsooth 't is he Wid. Then stay here and have a care of the Bags whil'st I follow him have a care of the Bags I say Ierr. And do you have a care forsooth of the Statute against Champerâ—ee I say Ex. Widow Enter Freeman to them Free So there 's a limb of my Widow which was wont to be inseparable from her she can't be far Aside How now my pretty Son-in-law that shall be where 's my Widow Ierr. My Mother but not your Widow will be forthcoming presently Free Your Servant Major what are you buying Furniture for a little sleeping Closet which you miscall a Study For you do only by your Books as by your Wenches bind 'em up neatly and make 'em fine
THE PLAIN-DEALER A COMEDY As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal. Written by M r WYCHERLEY HORAT Ridiculum acre Fortius melius magnas plerumque secat res Licensed Ian. 9. 1676. ROGER L'ESTRANGE LONDON Printed by T. N. for Iames Magnes and Rich Bentleyin Russel street in Covent-garden near the Piazza's M.DC.LXXVII PROLOGUE Spoken by the Plain-Dealer I The PLAIN-DEALER am to Act to Day And my rough Part begins before the Play First you who Scrible yet hate all that Write And keep each other Company in Spite As Rivals in your common Mistriss Fame And with faint Praises one another Damn 'T is a good Play we know you can't forgive But grudge your selves the pleasure you receive Our Scribler therefore bluntly bid me say He wou'd not have the Wits pleas'd here to Day Next you the fine loud Gentlemen o' th' Pit Who Damn all Playes yet if y 'ave any Wit 'T is but what here you spunge and daily get Poets like Friends to whom you are in Debt You hate and so Rooks laugh to see undone Those Pushing Gamesters whom they live upon Well you are Sparks and still will be i' th' fashion Rail then at Playes to hide your Obligation Now you shrewd Iudges who the Boxes sway Leading the Ladies hearts and sense astray And for their sakes see all and hear no Play Correct your Cravats Foretops Lock behind The Dress and Breeding of the Play ne'r mind Plain-dealing is you 'll say quite out of fashion You 'll hale it here as in a Dedication And your fair Neighbors in a Limning Poet No more than in a Painter will allow it Pictures too like the Ladies will not please They must be drawn too here like Goddesses You as at Lely's too wou'd Truncheon wield And look like Heroes in a painted Field But the course Dauber of the coming Scenes To follow Life and Nature only means Displays you as you are makes his fine Woman A mercenary Iilt and true to no Man His Men of Wit and Pleasure of the Age Are as dull Rogues as ever cumber'd Stage He draws a Friend only to Custom just And makes him naturally break his trust I only Act a Part like none of you And yet you 'll say it is a Fool 's Part too An honest Man who like you never winks At faults but unlike you speaks what he thinks The onely Fool who ne'r found Patron yet For Truth is now a fault as well as Wit And where else but on Stages do we see Truth pleasing or rewarded Honesty Which our bold Poet does this day in me If not to th' Honest be to th' Prosp'rous kind Some Friends at Court let the PLAIN-DEALER find EPILOGUE Spoken by the Widow Blackacre TO you the Iudges learned in Stage Laws Our Poet now by me submits his Cause For with young Iudges such as most of you The Men by Women best their bus'ness do And truth on 't is if you did not sit here To keep for us a Term throughout the Year We cou'd not live by 'r Tongues nay but for you Our Chamber-practice wou'd be little too And 't is not only the Stage Practiser Who by your meeting gets her living here For as in Hall of Westminster Sleek Sempstress vents amidst the Courts her Ware So while we Baul and you in Iudgment sit The Visor-Mask sells Linnen too i' th' Pit O many of your Friends besides us here Do live by putting off their sev'ral Ware Here 's daily done the great affair o' th' Nation Let Love and Vs then ne'r have Long-vacation But hold like other Pleaders I have done Not my poor Client's bus'ness but my own Spare me a word then now for him First know Squires of the Long Robe he does humbly show He has a just Right in abusing you Because he is a Brother-Templer too For at the Bar you Railly one another And Fool and Knave is swallow'd from a Brother If not the Poet here the Templer spare And maul him when you catch him at the Bar. From you our common modish Censurers Your Favor not your Iudgment 't is he fears Of all Loves begs you then to Rail find fault For Playes like Women by the World are thought When you speak kindly of 'em very naught THE PERSONS Manly Mr. Hart. Of an honest surly nice humor suppos'd first in the time of the Dutch War to have procur'd the Command of a Ship out of Honour not Interest and choosing a Sea-life only to avoid the World Freeman Mr. Kynaston Manly's Lieutenant a Gentleman well Educated but of a broken Fortune a Complyer with the Age. Vernish Mr. Griffin Manly's Bosome and onely Friend Novell Mr. Clark Apert railing Coxcomb and an Admirer of Novelties makes love to Olivia Major Oldfox Mr. Cartwright An old impertinent Fop given to Scribling makes Love to the Widow Blackacre My Lord Plausible Mr. Haines A Ceremonious Supple Commending Coxcomb in Love with Olivia Ierry-Blackacre Mr. Charlton A true raw Squire under Age and his Mothers Government bred to the Law Olivia Mrs. Marshall Manly's Mistriss Fidelia Mrs. Boutell In Love with Manly and follow'd him to Sea in Man's Cloaths Eliza Mrs. Knep Cousin to Olivia Letice Mrs. Knight Olivia's Woman The Widow Blackacre Mrs. Cory A petulant litigious Widow alwayes in Law and Mother to Squire Ierry Lawyers Knights of the Post Bayliffs an Alderman a Booksellers Prentice a Footboy Sailors Waiters and Attendants THE SCENE LONDON To my LADY B Madam THO I never had the Honour to receive a Favour from you nay or be known to you I take the confidence of an Author to write to you a Billiet doux Dedicatory which is no new thing for by most Dedications it appears that Authors though they praise their Patrons from top to toe and seem to turn 'em inside out know 'em as little as sometimes their Patrons their Books tho they read 'em out and if the Poetical Daubers did not write the name of the Man or Woman on top of the Picture 't were impossible to guess whose it were But you Madam without the help of a Poet have made your self known and famous in the World and because you do not want it are therefore most worthy of an Epistle Dedicatory And this Play claims naturally your Protection since it has lost its Reputation with the Ladies of stricter lives in the Play-house and you know when mens endeavours are discountenanc'd and refus'd by the nice coy Women of Honour they come to you To you the Great and Noble Patroness of rejected and bashful men of which number I profess my self to be one though a Poet a Dedicating Poet To you I say Madam who have as discerning a judgment in what 's obscene or not as any quick-sighted civil Person of 'em all and can make as much of a double meaning saying as the best of 'em yet wou'd not as some do make nonsense of a Poet's jest rather than not make it baudy by which they show they